It is official: Micromax CEO Vineet Taneja steps down

Vineet TanejaMicromax Informatics chief executive officer Vineet Taneja has formally resigned, making it the latest exit from the country's largest home-bred handset maker.

"Vineet has moved on to pursue other interests. We would like to thank him for his contribution and wish him good luck," a spokesperson from Micromax said Tuesday.

While the company did not reveal whether the company was looking to hire a replacement but said that its co-founders and senior management was "very well entrenched in to the operations and the business is as usual."

Taneja had joined Micromax in July 2014 after heading the cellphone business at Samsung India and stints at Bharti Airtel and Nokia. His exit marks the final departure of a slew of senior executives, which started off with chairman Sanjay Kapoor's discordant exit in August last year. A case between the company and Kapoor is going on in the Delhi High Court and both parties have entered mediation to resolve it amicably.

"We have Mr. Mahendra Swarup, an incumbent and non-executive chairman of the board to serve as an independent director," Micromax spokesperson said when asked about the replacement for the chairman's position. Swarup has been an independent director since 2009.

The company, which become the third largest handset player in Russia recently, saw its chief finance officer, vice president sales, vice president for R&D, head of smartphones and featurephones move out over the latter part of last year. It has since brought back old hands and promoters have taken charge of daily operations to ward off competition.

The Gurgaon-based company has maintained its No 2 position, trailing market leader Samsung, and grabbed a 14.1% share in the October to December 2015, but shipments fell 12.1% on-year and 23.5% on-quarter, as per International Data Corporation (IDC) India.

"The vendor is facing tremendous competition from both home-grown and China-based vendors at different price points under $200. Micromax's 4G share of smartphones increased to 27%, leading the LTE shipments amongst home-grown vendors," the research firm added.